A wide range of industrial and commercial applications involve the lifting and transportation of loads from one location to another with lifting apparatus, such as powered gantry cranes, jib cranes, bridge cranes or overhead cranes. Such cranes typically comprise a hoist for lifting the load, which is accommodated within a trolley or on rollers. The trolley or rollers run along or within a jib, boom or bridge such that the load can be moved along the length of the jib, boom or bridge.
In the case of overhead or bridge cranes, a pair of spaced apart parallel guides or tracks are situated substantially perpendicular to the bridge and the bridge spans the gap between the parallel guides. The ends of the bridge are typically supported by rollers or trolleys such that the bridge can move along the length of the parallel guides. The parallel guides are typically supported by a floor mounted structure comprising one or more beams and/or columns or by a structure suspended from the roof or overhead structure of a building in which the crane is housed. Hence, loads can be moved anywhere within the reach of the bridge.
With such powered cranes a continuous energy supply needs to be provided to mobile elements of the crane, such as the hoist moving along the length of the bridge and the trolleys or rollers moving the bridge along the guides. The energy supply may be electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic and the appropriate cabling or tubing needs to be routed through the support structure and crane structure to power the mobile elements.
Conventionally, the cabling or tubing is routed through the support and/or crane structures using catenary systems comprising wires or tracks along which dedicated trolleys carrying the cable or tubing runs. One problem with known cable or tubing trolleys is that they use a combination of bolts and spacers to attach the cable or tubing to the trolley. Typically the bolts and/or spacers must be completely undone, detached from the trolley and re-coupled to the trolley to enable fitting, which is fiddly and time consuming, particularly when the bolts and/or spacers are dropped during fitting.
Another problem with conventional cable or tubing trolleys is that they are only suitable for one type of catenary system, namely a wire system, or a track system. Where the trolley is for use with a track system, it is usually for a particular shape of track, such as an I-beam track or a C shaped track. A trolley designed for one shape of track usually cannot be used with another shape of track or does not work as well and can lead to jamming.
A further problem encountered with at least some known cable or tubing trolleys is that they are only suitable for one type cable, tubing or hose. For example, trolleys suitable for routing electrical cable are typically unsuitable for carrying pneumatic hoses. Some trolleys are even more specific and are only suitable for attaching to a particular shape and gauge of electrical cable. However, cabling for such systems is provided in a wide range or shapes and sizes depending on the application.
It is a preferred object of the present invention to provide an improved system that addresses or at least ameliorates one or more of the aforementioned problems.